Part 17

γ. The Development of Language.

In this department the fact of development from the simple to the complex has been so satisfactorily demonstrated by philologists as scarcely to require notice here. The course of that development has been from monosyllabic to polysyllabic forms, and also in a process of differentiation, as derivative races were broken off from the original stock and scattered widely apart. The evidence is clear that simple words for distinct objects formed the bases of the primal languages, just as the ground, tree, sun and moon represent the character of the first words the infant lisps. In this department also the facts point to an infancy of the human race.

δ. Development of the Fine Arts.

If we look at representation by drawing or sculpture, we find that the efforts of the earliest races of which we have any knowledge were quite similar to those which the untaught hand of infancy traces on its slate or the savage depicts on the rocky faces of hills. The circle or triangle for the head and body, and straight lines for the limbs, have been preserved as the first attempts of the men of the stone period, as they are to this day the sole representations of the human form which the North American Indian places on his buffalo robe or mountain precipice. The stiff, barely-outlined form of the deer, the turtle, etc., are literally those of the infancy of civilized man.

The first attempts at sculpture were marred by the influence of modism. Thus the idols of Coban and Palenque, with human faces of some merit, are overloaded with absurd ornament, and deformed into frightful asymmetry, in compliance with the demand of some imperious mode. In later days we have the stiff, conventionalized figures of the palaces of Nineveh and the temples of Egypt, where the representation of form has somewhat improved, but is too often distorted by false fashion or imitation of some unnatural standard, real or artistic. This is distinguished as the day of archaic sculpture, which disappeared with the Etruscan nation. So the drawings of the child, when he abandons the simple lines, are stiff and awkward, and but a stage nearer true representation; and how often does he repeat some peculiarity or absurdity of his own! So much easier is it to copy than to conceive.

The introduction of the action and pose of life into sculpture was not known before the early days of Greece, and it was there that the art was brought to perfection. When art rose from its mediæval slumber, much the same succession of development may be discovered. First, the stiff figures, with straightened limbs and cylindric drapery, found in the old Northern churches—then the forms of life that now adorn the porticoes and palaces of the cities of Germany.

ε. Rationale of the Development of Intelligence.

The history of material development shows that the transition from stage to stage of development, experienced by the most perfect forms of animals and plants in their growth from the primordial cell, is similar to the succession of created beings which the geological epochs produced. It also shows that the slow assumption of main characters in the line of succession in early geological periods produced the condition of inferiority, while an increased rapidity of growth in later days has resulted in an attainment of superiority. It is not to be supposed that in “acceleration” the period of growth is shortened: on the contrary, it continues the same. Of two beings whose characters are assumed at the same rate of succession, that with the quickest or shortest growth is necessarily inferior. “Acceleration” means a gradual increase of the rate of assumption of successive characters in the same period of time. A fixed rate of assumption of characters, with gradual increase in the length of the period of growth, would produce the same result—viz., a longer developmental scale and the attainment of an advanced position. The first is in part the relation of sexes of a species; the last of genera, and of other types of creation. If from an observed relation of many facts we derive a law, we are permitted, when we see in another class of facts similar relations, to suspect that a similar law has operated, differing only in its objects. We find a marked resemblance between the facts of structural progress in matter and the phenomena of intellectual and spiritual progress.

If the facts entering into the categories enumerated in the preceding section bear us out, we conclude that in the beginning of human history the progress of the individual man was very slow, and that but little was attained to; that through the profitable direction of human energy, means were discovered from time to time by which the process of individual development in all metaphysical qualities has been accelerated; and that up to the present time the consequent advance of the whole race has been at an increasing rate of progress, This is in accordance with the general principle, that high development in intellectual things is accomplished by rapidity in traversing the preliminary stages of inferiority common to all, while low development signifies sluggishness in that progress, and a corresponding retention of inferiority.

How much meaning may we not see, from this stand-point, in the history of the intelligence of our little ones! First they crawl, they walk on all fours: when they first assume the erect position they are generally speechless, and utter only inarticulate sounds. When they run about, stones and dirt, the objects that first meet the eye, are the delight of their awakening powers, but these are all cast aside when the boy obtains his first jackknife. Soon, however, reading and writing open a new world to him; and finally as a mature man he seizes the forces of nature, and steam and electricity do his bidding in the active pursuit of power for still better and higher ends.

So with the history of the species: first the quadrumane—then the speaking man, whose humble industry was, however, confined to the objects that came first to hand, this being the “stone age” of pre-historic time. When the use of metals was discovered, the range of industries expanded wonderfully, and the “iron age” saw many striking efforts of human power. With the introduction of letters it became possible to record events and experiences, and the spread of knowledge was thereby greatly increased, and the delays and mistakes of ignorance correspondingly diminished in the fields of the world’s activity.

From the first we see in history a slow advance as knowledge gained by the accumulation of tradition and by improvements in habit based on experience; but how slow was this advance while the use of the metals was still unknown! The iron age brought with it not only new conveniences, but increased means of future progress; and here we have an acceleration in the rate of advance. With the introduction of letters this rate was increased many fold, and in the application of steam we have a change equal in utility to any that has preceded it, and adding more than any to the possibilities of future advance in many directions. By its power, knowledge and means of happiness were to be distributed among the many.

The uses to which human intelligence has successively applied the materials furnished by nature have been—First, subsistence and defence: second, the accumulation of power in the shape of a representative of that labor which the use of matter involves; in other words, the accumulation of wealth. The possession of this power involves new possibilities, for opportunity is offered for the special pursuits of knowledge and the assistance of the weak or undeveloped part of mankind in its struggles.

Thus, while the first men possessed the power of speech, and could advance a little in knowledge through the accumulation of the experiences of their predecessors, they possessed no means of accumulating the power of labor, no control over the activity of numbers—in other words, no wealth.

But the accumulation of knowledge finally brought this advance about. The extraction and utilization of the metals, especially iron, formed the most important step, since labor was thus facilitated and its productiveness increased in an incalculable degree. We have little evidence of the existence of a medium of exchange during the first or stone period, and no doubt barter was the only form of trade. Before the use of metals, shells and other objects were used: remains of money of baked clay have been found in Mexico. Finally, though in still ancient times, the possession of wealth in money gradually became possible and more common, and from that day to this avenues for reaching this stage in social progress has ever been opening.

But wealth merely indicates a stage of progress, since it is but a comparative term. All men could not become rich, for in that case all would be equally poor. But labor has a still higher goal; for, thirdly, as capital, it constructs and employs machinery, which does the work of many hands, and thus cheapens products, which is equivalent in effect to an accumulation of wealth to the consumer. And this increase of power may be used for the intellectual and spiritual advance of men, or otherwise, at the will of the men thus favored. Machinery places man in the position of a creator, operating on Nature through an increased number of “secondary causes.”

Development of intelligence is seen, then, in the following directions: First, in the knowledge of facts, including science; second, in language; third, in the apprehension of beauty; and, as consequences of the first of these, the accumulation of power by development—First, of means of subsistence; and second, of mechanical invention.

Thus we have two terms to start with in estimating the beginning of human development in knowledge and power: First, the primary capacities of the human mind itself; second, a material world, whose infinitely varied components are so arranged as to yield results to the energies of that mind. For example, the transition points of vaporization and liquefaction are so placed as to be within the reach of man’s agents; their weights are so fixed as to accord with the muscular or other forces which he is able to exert; and other living organizations are subject to his convenience and rule, and not, as in previous geological periods, entirely beyond his control. These two terms being given, it is maintained that the present situation of the most civilized men has been attained through the operation of a law of mutual action and reaction—a law whose results, seen at the present time, have depended on the acceleration or retardation of its rate of action; which rate has been regulated, according to the degree in which a third great term, viz., the law of moral or (what is the same thing) true religious development has been combined in the plan. What it is necessary to establish in order to prove the above hypothesis is—

I. That in each of the particulars above enumerated the development of the human species is similar to that of the individual from infancy to maturity.

II. That from a condition of subserviency to the laws of matter, man’s intelligence enables him, by an accumulation of power, to become in a sense independent of those laws, and to increase greatly the rate of intellectual and spiritual progress.

III. That failure to accomplish a moral or spiritual development will again reduce him to a subserviency to the laws of matter.

This brings us to the subject of moral development. And here I may be allowed to suggest that the weight of the evidence is opposed to the philosophy, “falsely so called,” of necessitarianism, which asserts that the first two terms alone were sufficient to work out man’s salvation in this world and the next; and, on the other hand, to that anti-philosophy which asserts that all things in the progress of the human race, social and civil, are regulated by immediate Divine interposition instead of through instrumentalities. Hence the subject divides itself at once into two great departments—viz., that of the development of mind or intelligence, and that of the development of morality.

That these laws are distinct there can be no doubt, since in the individual man one of them may produce results without the aid of the other. Yet it can be shown that each is the most invaluable aid and stimulant to the other, and most favorable to the rapid advance of the mind in either direction.

III. SPIRITUAL OR MORAL DEVELOPMENT.

In examining this subject, we first inquire (Sect. α) whether there is any connection between physical and moral or religious development; then (β), what indications of moral development may be derived from history. Finally (γ), a correlation of the results of these inquiries, with the nature of the religious development in the individual, is attempted. Of course in so stupendous an inquiry but a few leading points can be presented here.

If it be true that the period of human existence on the earth has seen a gradually increasing predominance of higher motives over lower ones among the mass of mankind, and if any parts of our metaphysical being have been derived by inheritance from preëxistent beings, we are incited to the inquiry whether any of the moral qualities are included among the latter; and whether there be any resemblance between moral and intellectual development.

Thus, if there have been a physical derivation from a preëxistent genus, and an embryonic condition of those physical characters which distinguish Homo—if there has been also an embryonic or infantile stage in intellectual qualities—we are led to inquire whether the development of the individual in moral nature will furnish us with a standard of estimation of the successive conditions or present relations of the human species in this aspect also.

a. Relations of Physical and Moral Nature.